The Eerie Day Immanuel was Born – 12/24/2018

WARNING PREACHY…

I remember vividly the events of 9/11/2001, I think because the scene was not of a place and location that was unfamiliar to me but rather I had known the towers of the World Trade Center, I had seen them in real life and even ran my hand along their sides as I walked by them.  The images I saw on 9/11 of the buildings having jets flown into them and then collapsing down into piles of rubble had a great effect on me, not like the war scenes from strange and faraway places; these images were real and personal to me.  

I was at college that day watching the events unfold and the video of the planes crashing in replayed a thousand times.  When I finally emerged and stepped outside I was struck with eeriness because the world was quiet.  I looked in the sky and there was no air travel: no helicopters, no puddle jumpers landing at the airport next door, and no jets way up high visible by only their jet streams.  In fact, the sky was completely empty of jet streams that usually filled up the sky’s palette of blue.  It was eerie as if without the sky’s clutter the world became amazingly quieted.

I wonder if the world experienced this sort of hush when Jesus was born?

The babe born to Mary was Immanuel which means “God with us.”  It seems to me that this single event must have been felt by both believer and non at the same time, though with varying effect and understanding.  I can imagine the Wise Men getting a strong urge to step outside and look to the stars when Jesus entered the world.  I wonder if they felt it, the eeriness of something cosmic happening?  I suspect they were spiritually in tune like that.

Do you feel it?  As we remember and celebrate the birth of our savior do you feel the echoes of the world’s rejoicing?  Doesn’t the very thought of God becoming Flesh boggle the mind and cause you to awe?  Do you worship with the common-man shepherds or with the nobility, the wise men, and the kings?

As we celebrate the birth of God this Christmas, let us look to the sky recognizing how the cosmos reverberates with His entrance into the world and rejoice with all creation in reverence for our new born King.

Have a Merry Christmas!